This is Why Year of the Fangirl is Awesome – Meet Lisa
Last week I shared a video from Sarah, whom I met through Her Universe’s Year of the Fangirl. The campaign was meant to help fangirls connect and to build a community.
Knowing I was so excited about the Jaina Solo exclusive t-shirt released during San Diego Comic-Con, Erich Schoeneweiss sent me a picture of Lisa at the Del Rey booth posing in hers. He also told me Lisa was an awesome fan and would be perfect for Year of the Fangirl. He put us in touch, and after speaking with her I couldn’t agree more with his assessment.
While working on her nomination I asked her a few other questions that I could share at the blog. Here’s what Lisa has to say about what she did at SDCC, working together with other fans to achieve her goals and being a member of the Rebel Legion:
Tell me about all the different things you did at Comic-Con, including posing with Jaina shirt.
Primarily I was at the con to help with the Rebel Legion table (set up, tear down, and manning the table to answer questions for folks). But I also got to go to a couple of really interesting panels and walk the con floor a bunch. The Jaina shirt is related to all of that – I completely flipped out when I saw that a Jaina shirt was being sold at SDCC. Everyone knows me as more of a KOTOR fan now, but she was my absolute favourite character when I was in middle school and high school. 
As a woman who has enjoyed taking apart and rebuilding computers since she was a little kid, I didn’t have a lot of role models in fiction, but Jaina’s love of working on ships spoke to me. For that reason alone, she will always have a special place in my fangirl heart. So I was completely excited, but the shirts went on sale while I was slated to be in line for the Legend of Korra panel, where we would be seeing the first episode of the new season. So I made a deal with Andrew, one of our Rebel Legion guys who does a killer Luke Skywalker: if he would grab me a Jaina shirt while I was in line for Korra, I would get to the con floor early the next day and grab him a spot in line at the Star Wars Books booth for their Making of Star Wars signing. Both worked out perfectly, and Andrew delivered me the shirt at the end of the day on Friday. At that point, I was so tired from having made a costume change from Avatar into Star Wars to induct John Jackson Miller into the Rebel Legion, and having had a couple of costume malfunctions there including a broken pants zipper that forced me to wear my blue jeans with the costume, that I just grabbed the shirt, ducked behind the curtains that hid all our storage boxes, and switched out of my costume tunic into the shirt.
The picture was taken when I headed back down in my street clothes to thank the Del Rey guys for helping me out with the induction. It’s my favourite booth so I hang out there a lot anyway, but I really appreciated their assistance in making sure John Jackson Miller was surprised. And that’s pretty indicative of the kind of con I had – a little hectic and tiring, but ultimately awesome. Plus, lots of free books. I can never argue with that.
How did you get started in Rebel Legion and what’s your role in it now?
Funnily enough, I met my first Rebel Legion folks at a Timothy Zahn book signing in Cleveland for Survivor’s Quest. I showed up in my terrible, safety-pinned together Jedi outfit, and they said, “You like costumes? You should come check out the Rebel Legion!”Mind you, I honestly did not know how to sew at the time, but they taught me, and about a year later I had my first costume approved.
Officially, I’m now the Base Membership Officer for Sunrider Base, which is the Southern California chapter of the Rebel Legion. I also maintain the website. Unofficially, I’ve become one of the cheerleaders for obscure EU costumes on the Rebel Legion boards. I think the weirdness of some of them drives a few of the costume judges crazy, but even the weird costumes deserve support.
How many costumes do you have? Include a favorite picture or two.
I’m starting to lose count. But I have seven approved in the Rebel Legion, two Disney princess costumes, Katara from Avatar: the Last Airbender, Codex from The Guild, a custom flapper dress, and a Galadriel costume. Not yet approved in the Rebel Legion is my new Mission Vao costume, and in progress is a Kira Carsen costume from The Old Republic and Padme’s purple loyalist committee gown from Attack of the Clones.
Mission Vao and Guild cosplay photos courtesy of Lisa. Chiss pilot photo courtesy of Erich Schoeneweiss. Check out Lisa in her Jaina shirt at FANgirl’s SDCC Star Wars wrap-up.
Tricia Barr took her understanding of brand management and marketing, mixed it with a love of genre storytelling, and added a dash of social media flare to create FANgirl Blog, where she discusses Star Wars, fandom, and strong female characters. She also writes about Star Wars for Random House’s science fiction and fantasy blog Suvudu.com and Star Wars Insider magazine and is a contributor for Her Universe’s Year of the Fangirl.
Tricia is putting the finishing touches on her first novel, Wynde – a military science fiction with a fantastical twist that features heroines Vespa Wynde and Gemini Reed. For excerpts and tales of her adventures in creating a fictional universe, hop over to TriciaBarr.com.
For updates on all things FANgirl follow @FANgirlcantina on Twitter or like FANgirl Zone on Facebook. At times she tries the Tumblr.
Tricia Barr's novel, Wynde, won the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Ebook. She was also part of Silence in the Library's successful all-female creator science fiction and fantasy anthology Athena's Daughters, which is available now. For excerpts and tales of her adventures in creating a fictional universe, hop over to TriciaBarr.com.
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Hat’s off to Lisa! Not only is she a really cool star wars fan and EU costume juggernaut, she’s also a really cool person!
MISSION COSTUME. Please hold while I screech with joy. Go you, Lisa!